Spy Ski School (16 page)

Cyrus shifted his angry gaze back to me. “This is your friend Mike Brezinski?”

I gaped in surprise. “You know who Mike is?”

“Of course I know who Mike is!” Cyrus snarled. “This wouldn't be the first time that friend of yours has compromised one of our missions. How on earth did he end up here?”

“It was a coincidence,” I said weakly.

“There's no such thing,” Cyrus informed me.

“Well, to be honest, that's not true,” Alexander put in helpfully. “Once, when I was undercover in Istanbul, I ran right into my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Jenkins, at a falafel stand. Luckily, I was disguised as a nun, so she didn't recognize me. . . .”

“Shut up,” Cyrus ordered.

Alexander clammed up again and resumed eating his oysters.

“You don't need to worry about Mike Brezinski,” Jawa told Cyrus. “We developed a plan to distract him so that he won't be a problem anymore.”

Cyrus took a step back, growing even more concerned, putting things together before we could explain them. “Where's my granddaughter?” he demanded.

“I'm right here,” Erica said.

We all spun around to find her leaning against a stuffed
grizzly bear nearby. Once again, she'd managed to arrive without anyone noticing. Even Cyrus seemed surprised to see her there.

“You were the distraction?” Cyrus asked.

“Yes,” Erica answered.

“And were you successful?” Cyrus added.

“Mike Brezinski is no longer going to be an issue where Jessica Shang is concerned. He has set his sights on someone else.” Erica slipped past her father, took a seat at the junior spies' table, and began perusing the menu.

“But he could still blow Ben's cover?” Cyrus asked.

“Yes,
that's
still an issue,” Erica said. “But I have it under control. He's skiing with his family during the day, and in the afternoons, I can divert him so that he doesn't go anywhere near Jessica.”

“How are you going to divert him?” Alexander asked suspiciously, more like a worried father than a spy.

“I'm going to invite him to be lots of places where Jessica is not,” Erica replied calmly, then asked her father, “How's the French onion soup?”

“Inedible,” Alexander replied.

“I figured as much.” Erica sighed.

“I don't like this,” Cyrus muttered. “I don't like it at all. Erica, you're supposed to be Ben's handler on this operation, not running around with some hoodlum.”

“First of all,” Erica said, “my ability to handle Ben hasn't been compromised. And second, not every teenage boy is a hoodlum. Mike's not so bad.”

Zoe dropped her fork into her mashed potatoes in shock. “Oh my gosh,” she gasped. “You
like
him.”

Erica recoiled as though Zoe had just electrocuted her. “I do not!”

“You just said he's ‘not so bad,' ” Zoe informed her. “That's the nicest thing I've ever heard you say about a boy. Or anyone. In fact, it's the nicest thing I've ever heard you say, period.”

“Erica,” Alexander said, intrigued, “if this fellow is special to you, do you think I ought to meet him?”

“No!” Erica gasped, horrified. “I don't like him! Any interest I have shown him is solely acting, and once this mission is over, I will have no interest in ever seeing him again!”

“You sure
sound
like you like him,” Chip taunted.

“Well, I don't!” Erica snapped. “Not one bit!”

This was about the most emotionally worked up any of us had ever seen Erica, which only seemed to confirm that she really
did
like Mike. Normally, I would have loved to see Erica unsettled like this, especially when she was being subjected to almost the exact same grilling she'd given me about Jessica Shang the day before. But this was different. Because
I
liked Erica. The last thing I needed was her developing a
crush on someone else. Especially my best friend.

Everyone else seemed just as unconvinced by Erica's arguments, but for the moment they all let it slide. Cyrus returned his harsh gaze to me. “Seems my granddaughter is really putting herself out to fix this trouble you've caused. . . .”

“I had no idea Mike was going to be here,” I reiterated.

Cyrus snorted disapprovingly. “Point is, she's going way out on a limb to get this mission back on track. Now, are you prepared to do your part? Can you get to Leo Shang?”

I hesitated before answering. The truth was, I felt I had almost no chance of getting to Leo Shang. The man was surrounded by bodyguards trained to kill, and I'd be lucky if Jessica ever talked to me again.

But then I thought about my encounter with Leo Shang that day. Even though Cyrus said my hunch wasn't worth anything, I
knew
I was right. The man was up to something. Whatever Operation Golden Fist was, it wasn't good. And if I was the CIA's only route to finding out what was going on, then I couldn't back down. Yes, it would be dangerous. Yes, it would be scary. And yes, it would force Erica to flirt with Mike even more. But there was a job to be done, and I was determined to figure out a way to do it.

So I looked Cyrus right in the eye and said, “Yes. I can get to Leo Shang.”

Cyrus held my gaze for a long time, as though trying to
determine whether he believed me—and whether I believed myself. “All right,” he said finally. “We'll move ahead. But if this mission goes to pot, you're the one who'll take the fall for it.” With that, he slipped into his parka and headed out into the cold, stiffing all of us with the check.

“I hope you're not saying you can get to Leo just to please my father,” Alexander said to me quietly. “You can never please him. Trust me, I've spent my whole life trying.”

There was a sadness in his eyes as he said this, and I suddenly had a revelation about Alexander. The man had built his reputation on hundreds of lies about how successful his missions had been. I had always assumed that he'd done this to further his career, but now I wondered if it had all simply been a desperate attempt to impress his father.

“I'm not sucking up to Cyrus,” I said. “I can do this.”

“Well, you're going to have to do it fast,” Erica told me. “There's only three days left until Golden Fist goes down.”

“Erica and Mike, sitting in a tree,” someone at the other end of the table sang under their breath, “K-I-S-S-I-N—”

Erica suddenly lunged out of her chair, grabbing Warren by the hair and slamming him face-first into the remnants of his dinner. “Say one more letter,” she growled, “and I will gut you with a steak knife.”

“It wasn't me!” Warren whined. “It was Chip!”

“I don't care if it was the Queen of England!” Erica
warned us all. “I am not interested in Mike Brezinski. And the next person who makes a joke about it ends up in the hospital.”

She released Warren, who collapsed back in his chair, gasping for breath, pulling french fries out of his nostrils.

Erica calmly returned her attention to me, as though she hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. “So, how'd things go with Jessica after I got Mike out of there?”

“Um . . . We have some problems,” I reported, then looked to Zoe. “She didn't get vulnerable after Mike left like you said she would.”

“She didn't?” Zoe asked.

“No,” I replied. “Instead, she got angry.
Really
angry. And then she told me to leave.”

“Oh boy,” Zoe said. “I was hoping that wouldn't happen.”

“You mean you knew it
might
?” Erica snapped at her.

“You didn't?” Zoe shot back. “You're a teenage girl! You've never had your emotions get all out of whack?”

“No,” Erica said, without any emotion at all.

“Well, it happens to normal people sometimes,” Zoe replied. “Normal people aren't robots. They have feelings, and I can't predict every possible one of them. So I went with what I thought would be the most probable outcome.”

“Sadly, that wasn't the case,” I said. “Jessica went totally
cold on me. So now I have to figure out a way to get her interested in me again.”

“Lucky for you, you've come to the right place,” Alexander said suavely. “When it comes to piquing a woman's interest, I'm an expert.”

“Dad, please don't say things like that in front of me,” Erica said, looking nauseated. “I'm going to lose my appetite.”

“Now, then,” Alexander went on, oblivious to his daughter, “the best way to win over a woman is with good manners and charm. You invite her out to a delicious meal, then order something special, like a nice bottle of champagne. . . .”

“I'm only thirteen,” I pointed out.

“. . . or beluga caviar . . . ,” Alexander went on.

“That's a hundred and forty dollars an ounce,” Jawa told him.

“. . . or perhaps some oysters,” Alexander continued, indicating the ones on his plate. “Normally, you'd want them raw, of course. I prefer Kumamotos, myself. They have just the right hint of brininess and a certain je ne sais quoi, but these local ones are surprisingly tasty.”

Erica cocked an eyebrow at him. “You ordered the Rocky Mountain oysters?”

“Yes. They're quite flavorful, although they don't taste much like other oysters. . . .”

“That's because they're bull testicles,” Erica told him.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Alexander chided. “They wouldn't make something like that at a restaurant like this!”

Erica handed him the menu and pointed to the small print he'd overlooked that indicated exactly what Rocky Mountain oysters were.

“Oh dear,” Alexander gasped. He promptly turned green and ran out the door to throw up in the parking lot.

Hank slid into the seat next to me and put an arm around my shoulder. “Don't listen to Alexander. When it comes to women, he's way too old-school. But me . . . I'm a regular Casanova. You have any questions about chicks, I can answer them.”

Chip burst into laughter. “You? You don't know anything about women! That's why Claire dumped you!”

“She didn't dump me,” Hank retorted. “I dumped her!”

“Then why did you spend the next three days crying about it?” Chip asked. He then performed an overblown imitation of Hank, bawling into the telephone. “Please, take me back, Claire! I'm nothing without you. I promise, I can change!”

“Stop it,” Hank warned.

Chip didn't. Instead, he amped up his imitation even more. “You can't dump your little Hanky-Wanky. I love you!”

“That does it!” Hank launched himself at Chip, knocking
him out of his chair. They proceeded to roll around on the floor of the restaurant, trying to pound each other.

Jawa gingerly stepped over them and took the chair Hank had just vacated. “I might be of service where women are concerned,” he said. “I have read Agent Percival Perry's
Manual to Seducing Women in the Field
a hundred times.”

“Agent Perry was a hack,” Erica said coldly.

“He was?” Jawa asked.

“Yes,” Erica replied. “He was actually terrible with women in the field. They stopped using his manual thirty years ago.”

“So the ‘Red Rose Rendezvous Ruse' . . . ,” Jawa began.

“Never works,” Erica finished. “All it will get you is a slap in the face and a knee in the crotch.”

“Oh,” Jawa said, turning red. “Apparently, I may not be of service after all.”

“Well,
I
know all about women,” Warren said, grinning at Zoe slyly. “If you want to win a girl over, the first thing you do is slip up behind her and give her a nice, soothing massage.” He tried this on Zoe, digging his fingers into her shoulders.

“Ouch!” Zoe screamed. “Stop that, you moron!”

Warren cringed. “But it's shiatsu!”

“It's painful,” Zoe snapped. “And disgusting. Your hands are all clammy. Ugh. I need to go home and shower.”

Warren wilted and sat back down.

Chip and Hank rolled past us, still trying to clobber each other.

Erica sighed. “Looks like we're pretty screwed where relationship advice is concerned.”

As she said this, however, I had a flash of insight. Maybe things weren't quite as bad as Erica thought. When it came to women, I knew exactly who to turn to for help.

Simba ski run

Vail Mountain

December 28

1600 hours

“I need some advice,” I
said to Mike.

“Sure,” he replied. “You're dragging your left ski when you turn.”

“Really?” I made another turn, taking care to not drag my left ski. Mike's advice was spot-on. I moved much more naturally.

“There you go!” Mike exclaimed proudly. “Nicely done!”